Designing a successful email marketing campaign takes time and strategy. While it is imperative to partner with an established email marketing vendor, you cannot possibly overlook email security. As an enterprise head, you might be focusing on intensifying your digital footprint by working on your email list and leads. Amidst all these responsibilities, it’s easy to ignore online threats from malicious actors. While most established email marketing vendors offer anti-phishing services and ransomware protection, you need to guard yourself against other modes of attacks too. To craft a better experience on your digital journey, you need to know the best practices while selecting your email marketing vendor.
Statistics Demonstrating The Need For Adequate Email Security
Before proceeding further, here are some figures that present a grave scenario concerning email security.
- Email accounts for 92% of the delivery mechanisms for malware.
- Between 2019 and 2020, the FBI recorded a 110% increase in phishing attacks. This fact underlines the need for phishing protection for your organization.
- Given that 83.88% of global emails happen to be spam, you need to ensure that your target audience receives your emails.
- Spear phishing accounts for 95% of the attack vectors for social engineering groups.
- From 2021, ransomware attacks are expected to cost organizations at least $6 trillion each year.
Why Email Security is an Essential Aspect While Looking for an Email Marketing Vendor?
With data breaches piling up rapidly, it makes sense to prioritize email security when you collaborate with a vendor. It makes sense to consider the prime security aspects to ensure that your customer data remains in safe hands. Under no condition can you ignore third-party vendor security.
From the choice of email hosting provider to security tools, you need to gauge your defense mechanism with prudence. While you remain focused on your leads and conversions, threat actors might steal your customer credentials. Such an occurrence would ultimately lead to an infringement of privacy while costing your business millions of dollars in terms of lost customers.
Why Should You Prioritize Email Marketing Vendor Security?
Given that about 50% of US organizations have suffered data breaches, you need to address email security seriously. In this regard, you need to scrutinize the vendor’s infrastructure in terms of security mechanisms. The robustness of the vendor’s system directly determines the speed at which you can deliver emails to potential customers. At the same time, one has to be vigilant concerning the underlying security, including dedicated security professionals. Also, make sure to check the following aspects.
- Among other aspects, you need to check their vulnerability management tools, network security, application security, and endpoint protection.
- When you partner with one of the vendors, ensure that they have adequate certifications such as SOC 2 reports.
- Moreover, they should adhere to the prescribed security benchmarks set by CCPA and GDPR.
- Some of the other email security features include single sign-on with SAML and session timeouts.
Other Key Aspects to Consider While Hiring An Email Marketing Vendor
Besides email security, the following factors also must be considered while choosing an email marketing vendor.
What Type of Services Would You Need?
In the first place, you need to decide the types of email marketing services the vendor offers. It will help you come up with the most appropriate business model and manage client relationships. In this context, you should consider the following aspects:
- What are your goals while you seek email marketing services?
- How deeply would you be involved in the campaigns?
- Do you need services like email archiving and email forwarding from the vendor?
- Do you want any other allied services?
Reputed vendors specialize in all these domains besides providing their clients with powerful tools for email marketing. Furthermore, they perform all the necessary tasks right from the basics, like creating email templates. Some of the supplementary services include analytics, creative aspects, etc. At the same time, they will deploy adequate email security tools.
What Specific Features Are You Looking For?
As you explore different tools for email marketing, you need to narrow down your options. Consider the features and solutions that you would need to leverage your organization’s campaigns. Based on your marketing goals and target audience, you need to make the call. Some of these features include private labeling, markups, templates, etc. You may also need adequate support to manage multiple clients or deal with permissions or workflows. The vendor would also provide you with templates and emails with custom HTML codes. Once you determine the necessary features, the vendor can provide you with a comprehensive quote.
Look For Custom Solutions
When it comes to email marketing, you won’t be facing many of the generic problems. Therefore, it is imperative to seek custom solutions to handle unique challenges. Make sure to partner with one of the agencies capable of providing you with customized solutions. Once they understand your organization’s goals, they can roll out the services accordingly. Established vendors would tailor their email marketing strategies as per your requirements. Most importantly, you should enjoy cost flexibility when you seek custom services.
Tally Your Budget With The Vendor’s Pricing
Being an enterprise owner, you would want to consider email marketing to be an investment. As you scale up your organization, you need to increase the budget. However, when you collaborate with the vendor, there must be a transparent view of the pricing. Most vendors offer scalable services, but it makes sense to work with a vendor with fair billing practice. Make sure that they can provide quotes depending on the specific needs of your enterprise.
In-house Services vs. Outsourcing
While some vendors have in-house professionals to carry out email marketing work, others hire external parties and outsource the tasks. Considering the importance of email security, business owners need to opt for the first option. Besides, collaborating with internal professionals would be easier, as they could tweak the strategies or make necessary changes quickly.
Final Words
While you would look forward to collaborating with a vendor offering allied services such as website designing or email hosting, never overlook email security in terms of priority. Nothing beats cyber vigilance at a time when phishing and ransomware attacks through emails are at their peak. Partnering with the correct email marketing vendor is crucial, as you would not be risking your customer’s data and organizational integrity.